Sarafina's POV
The walls were breathing again.
Not literally—THOUGH
but that's how it felt.
Like the stone itself inhaled when I did, exhaled when my pulse broke into a frightened sprint. Every surface hummed with that soft, eerie silver glow that had followed me since the dream.
Since the woman called me daughter.
Since Thalen called me something I refused to be.
Princess.
My stomach knotted.
I pressed a shaking hand to my temple.
"Stop," I whispered.
But my thoughts didn't listen. The wards didn't listen.
And somewhere beyond the stone walls—
Cassian's energy thrummed like a heartbeat.
Alistair's like a distant storm.
They were really here.
Trying to break in for me.
The realization made something hot and painful bloom in my chest.
I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to anchor.
It didn't work.
A spike of silver shot down my spine—sharp, bright, wrong.
"Ow—!" My knees buckled.
The world wavered.
The room tilted.
And then,
The memory hit.
Not gently.
Not like a dream.
Like a blow.
I was small.
Bare feet on cold marble.
Soft light everywhere—warm, golden, pulsing through high stone columns.
My hands were tiny, curled tight in the fabric of someone's dress.
My mother's.
Not the woman from photographs.
Not the quiet human mother I lost at two years old.
This one glowed.
Not metaphorically.
Her skin shimmered like glass dipped in moonlight.
She was arguing with someone beyond the doorway, voice trembling with fury.
"You don't understand,if they find her, she dies."
A deeper voice responded. Muffled. Angry.
"You cannot hide blood forever."
My child-self flinched.
The woman, my mother? whirled around, kneeling, cupping my face.
Her eyes—blue like shattered stars—filled the whole world.
"I will protect you," she whispered fiercely.
"No matter the cost."
My small chest tightened.
Her forehead pressed to mine. Warm. Fierce. Terrified.
"Forgive me," she breathed. "One day you will understand why I chose the world over myself."
The ground cracked beneath us—light, blinding, swallowing everything.
Her voice fractured.
Her face broke
And I was falling
Falling
Falling
—
I gasped awake with a scream caught between my teeth.
The room reeled.
My hands shook uncontrollably.
Tears burned hot behind my eyes.
Thalen stood a few feet away, the air shimmering around him where the memory surge must have slammed into the wards.
He didn't move closer.
"What did you see?" he asked softly.
I glared through tears.
"You know what I saw."
His expression didn't change.
"Describe it."
"I don't—" My voice cracked. "I don't want to describe it. I want you to tell me the truth."
Thalen's silence felt like a wall closing around me.
I wiped my face angrily.
"She was arguing with someone. About me."
I swallowed hard.
"She was scared. She thought I would die. And she sealed me to keep me hidden."
Thalen's jaw tightened.
"So it begins," he murmured.
I pushed to my feet, breathing fast.
"Who was the man she was arguing with?"
"…I cannot say."
"Cannot," I repeated bitterly, "or will not?"
Thalen's silence answered for him.
A cold pressure squeezed my chest.
"You know everything, don't you?" I whispered. "About her. About me. About what I am."
Thalen exhaled slowly.
"I know what you carry inside you. And why your mother feared the world would tear itself apart to reach you."
"That doesn't help me!"
My voice cracked loud against the stone.
"My life is gone. My normal is gone. I don't even know who that man was or why I was in that hall or—and you won't tell me anything!"
The air flared, light rippling under my skin like something inside me wanted out.
I felt it. Thalen felt it too.
He lifted a hand—not to calm me, but to steady the wards as they crackled under the pressure.
"Your memories are returning too fast," he said low. "Faster than they should. Faster than is safe."
"I don't care."
"You should."
His voice carried a weight I had never heard from him before.
"Because once the seal breaks, Sarafina…"
He met my eyes.
"You will never be able to go back."
My throat closed.
I stumbled back a step.
"…Go back to what?" I whispered.
He looked at me like he was looking at someone long dead.
"Being human."
The words punched the air out of my lungs.
Before I could speak, a boom shook the walls.
The torches flared violently.
I startled.
Thalen didn't.
"Cassian," he murmured. "He's attempting to break the outer ward."
Another crack—louder, angrier.
"And Alistair," he added calmly, "is helping."
He moved to the doorway, silver threads on his sleeves glowing faintly.
"You should prepare yourself."
"For what?" I whispered.
Thalen glanced back at me—eyes soft, expression unreadable.
"For the moment the world decides it no longer wants to wait."